Nicholas Cueva

In this episode of Explain Me William Powhida and Paddy Johnson talk about the 450 million dollar Leonardo Da Vinci of disputed authenticity and the Boyle Heights activists who follow artist Laura Owen’s from L.A. to New York to protest her non-profit 365 Mission while she visited The Whitney. Activists believe the presence of her gallery will lead to displacement. Additionally, we discuss the exhibitions listed below.

Let’s face it—the bulk of this week’s chatter in the art world isn’t going to be about Donald Trump’s Inauguration, but Marilyn Minter and Madonna’s talk Thursday evening at the Brooklyn Museum lamenting it. And that’s as it should be. Resistance to this new presidency is essential.
Friday, we’ll be participating in the #J20 Art Strike, so no content on our website will be available but for a livestream of Rachel Mason lip synching the inauguration as FutureClown. Those seeking to participate in the art protests can head to the Whitney where Occupy Museums will be hosting a “Speak Out”.

Other than that, we’re recommending a show about soul crushing anxiety and despair at LUBOV, and a show called “Infected Foot” at Greene Naftali, because sickness also seems like an appropriate theme for the week. Sorry to be depressing. Unfortunately, there’s no other honest way to paint the events.

This week there’s not a lot of art stuff happening beyond holiday parties and craft fairs. One could say NYC’s taken an unexpectedly Middle-American turn in that regard, were it not for how morbid so much of the week’s happenings are. Tuesday night, scholars Sam Tanenhaus and Richard Wolin perform a post-election autopsy on the American Republic and speculate about its afterlife (hint: It’s not looking good) at CUNY. For a slightly less depressing evening, head to Ubu Gallery where German artist Heide Hatry is opening a new series of drawings made with the ashes of human remains. If that’s not enough mortuary holiday cheer for you, Con Artist Collective is throwing a fake memorial art show for the comedian Bill Murray (one of the few national treasures that hasn’t died in 2016). Thursday night we’re looking forward to a subversive holiday group show at Kate Werble Gallery, and a six-hour night of discussions about Art After Trump at Housing Works.

Friday night, things get a little less bleak city-wide. P! and Beverly’s are hosting events for a Bard CSS project that sprawls across Chinatown and continues with satellite events all weekend. At Brooklyn’s Orgy Park, a group show invites painters to make something collaborative, and in Queens, MoMA PS1 is throwing a holiday party for artists that looks totally bonkers. Have some spiked hot chocolate. After a week of thinking about Trump and death, you’re going to need it.

This week starts off slow, presumably to give those of us who were at the Miami fairs a bit of time to recover. Today we’ve listed Ballet at the Brooklyn Museum and Faith Ringgold at MoMA and that’s it. Thursday, look out. Chelsea will be a zoo. We’ve listed Michelle Grabner and Andrew Kuo as picks, but there’s plenty more to see. Friday head to Bushwick. Every gallery and their dog is hosting an opening, including Parlour and Interstate. We recommend picking up a few Christmas presents at some of these galleries. Emerging art is very affordable, and your parents will either love it or give it back to you. Either way, that’s a win-win scenario.

If ever there was a week for art nerds, this is it. It begins Tuesday with a screening of artist made music-videos Otion Front Studio and a show of meticulously assembled abstract paper works by Jessica Dickinson and Alison Knowles at James Fuentes. Paper nerds and music nerds unite. By Friday, gallery goers will be heading to Transfer Gallery to witness a room full of projectors showcasing a playlist of works by a dozen or more new media artists. New Media nerds rejoice.

In between all this nerdery, there are also quite a few exhibitions promising a good time, not the least of which being our very own Strange Genitals, which opens this Thursday at AICAD. Following this, is the always provocative Marilyn Minter at the Brooklyn Museum come Friday and Jennifer Catron and Paul Outlaw’s performance looking at how the relationship between gravity and politics leads to the break-down of thought. Catron and Outlaw promise an “assembly of libations” after their performance, so don’t make any plans for Sunday.

Walking around SPRING/BREAK this Saturday seemed indicative of a watershed moment. The artist-centric movement we’ve been tracking for the last several years is finally gaining more visibility and commercial success and no where is that more evident than this fair.

Located on the administrative floors at Moynihan Station (above the main post office), over 100 curated projects took over once occupied office space. These rooms were painted, wallpapered and filled with weird, temporary installations of fake apartments, medical institutions and cut out gardens. They also included paintings, collages and any other medium you can think of. Meanwhile, lines of fair goers wrapped around the building waiting to get in—even from the outside the excitement was palpable.

I find his work annoying and frustrating, the presentation simple and slight. The ultimate aim is to misinform the already mindless—yet I love every one of these objects. I shouldn’t, but I do. To me, they represent the confusion and insanity of life, and give me hope that anyone’s misguided psychology can have something redeeming. I see a reflection of myself in Klaus.

Brave the cold just a little longer, for we have so much art to see this week. Talks abound, from B. Wurtz on the history of sculpture to Winkleman Gallery’s panel on African-Americans in Soviet culture. We have openings, like a feminist sound art retrospective at CUNY and Greenpoint’s winter open studios night. Round out Sunday with a Genesis Breyer P-Orridge film-screening and book launch at PS1 and we’ll call it a week. Just grin and bear it.